Local woman’s harrowing experience of being stalked recalled in TV documentary
A SLIGO woman has recalled her stalking horror in a TV documentary shown earlier this week.
Virgin Media One last Monday (February 12) screened “Stalked” which outlined the trauma undergone by three victims of stalking.
One of the three was Eve McDowell who, after moving down to Galway to study, was terrorised by fellow student Igor Lewandowski.
In the broadcast, Eve admitted: “I’m still scared. Last night I had nightmares and the night before I had nightmares.
“I still keep thinking that I see him in places now. I don’t think something like that leaves you.
“I didn’t think stalking was something that happened in Ireland. I could never have imagined it happening here. I moved from Sligo to Galway – I was just starting college and I was very excited to be starting over in a new city.
“I really had a sense of invincibility that a lot of teenagers have. I was going out loads and made so many friends in that first few weeks. It was a very exciting time.
“Igor was a head that would have been floating around.
“We were in small accommodation so we all would have known each other. We would have been at the same parties together but we didn’t have loads of one on one conversations.
“I suppose I felt he was a bit awkward. I probably pitied him a bit and felt sorry for him because I don’t like to see people left out of things. I hadn’t got any strange vibes or red flags off him yet.”
Those flags would show themselves in due course.
“I was walking into town to get something from the shop,” added Eve,
“and it was starting to get dark. So I called my friend and on the way in, I turned behind me and I said ‘I think that’s Igor behind me – following me’.
“She said, ‘OK just stay on the phone – he’s probably just calling into town as well’.
“So I kind of forgot about it, went into the shop and bought what I needed. I came out and he was sitting on the bench outside the shop. He then proceeded to get up and walk behind me as I was walking back.
“I took a different route home – which would have been a complete detour – but he proceeded to walk that way as well.
“When I said this to other people they were like ‘ah surely it’s only a coincidence – I’m sure it’s fine’. I convinced myself then that it was insignificant.”
Sadly, Lewandowski stepped up his evil campaign of stalking causing Eve to go to the Gardaí only – and possibly due to no anti-stalking laws being in existence back then – to have her appeals fall on deaf ears.
“He started coming into the shop that I worked in a lot and show up to a lot of the parties that I would have been at as well. He started walking past the shop a lot,” she said.
“We would all be kind of walking somewhere before and turned around because we feel like someone’s there. But when there’s someone there over and over again and it’s the same person in so many different places, it’s just nuts.
“My friend also sent me screenshots of his Tinder profile of that time (one of which reveals Igor in an aggressive stance, wearing a mask and holding up two hammers with another one with Igor holding a large knife).
“That’s when I thought that maybe this person might be more dangerous than he might think.
“It can be very difficult being in public, walking down the street and he’s behind you.
“You’re ringing the guards saying ‘hey look there’s someone following me, I don’t want to bother you but I’m just a bit worried about what he might do’.
“And they’re like, ‘and what is it that you want us to do?’. ‘Has this person hurt you physically?’.
“That’s when I felt helpless. If someone interrupts the way that you live your life, that should be enough for action to be taken.”
Lewandowski’s stalking would eventually result in a violent end.
Eve continued: “The fear really started setting in when I was working in the shop and around quarter past eight on a Monday and I saw him over and back past the shop.
“I thought ‘that’s kind of strange – I wonder what he’s doing in town?’. There was barely anyone in the shopping centre. I came out (later) to go for my lunch and I saw him walk past again.
“I met my friend for lunch and he walked past again. I thought that maybe I was looking out for it too much and went back to work.
“My friend called in around 4pm and she said, ‘do you know he’s sitting outside the shop?’.
“I finished work and went across elsewhere to go to a pub. I saw one of my friends and she said, ‘I’m not even joking – he’s right over there’.
“She then suggested we go over to confront him. He was crouched down behind a car. He just went (places finger over mouth) ‘shh’ and ran off laughing.
“At that point, I was terrified.
“I just shouted after him, ‘you’re not doing a great job – I can spot you a mile away with that beard’ – he had a really distinctive beard.
“Three mornings later, someone tried to open the front door. My housemate came into my room and fell back on the bed and started screaming, ‘my God – who is that? Who is that?’.
“I looked out the window and he was in the bushes outside my bedroom window with his beard, eyebrows and hair all shaved off.
“At that point I was absolutely stunned and thought, ‘if he’s gone and done this, he could do anything’. I was afraid for my life – I knew then he wasn’t going to stop at anything.
“I didn’t sleep at all that night. I kept thinking I could hear his footsteps going up and down on the steps.
“My housemate woke up and she was really warm so she went to the balcony to get some fresh air. She crouched over the ledge and then she heard the floorboards creak. She looked up and he was there.
“I heard my housemate screaming, ‘oh my God – it’s him, it’s him. Get out! Get out!’.
“I’d already pushed the furniture up against the door because I thought, ‘this is it – I’m gone!’.
“He ran towards my housemate with a hammer and hit her on the hands. He tried to hit her over the head but she managed to get the hammer out of his hands.
“He panicked and then jumped off the balcony.
“We locked the door and put furniture up against it and waited for the guards to come. The guards came and said they had found him down the road crawling up the estate as he had damaged his ankles as he fell off the balcony.
“I believe that he was going to kill me.”
Lewandowski was arrested, charged and would – in November 2019 – plead guilty to aggravated burglary and harassment.
He was released from prison four years later.
“I would describe myself as a stalking survivor but really I’m still a stalking victim because I haven’t really survived it yet. It hasn’t ended yet,” says Eve.
“The thought of him being able to find my location is…. There are actually no words to describe how it feels. “I don’t feel like it’s over yet.
“For Igor to have access to information about where I live would be frightening.
“I was under the impression that I would have a five-year legal order of no contact. Just before he was released, I found out that I didn’t have anything.
“I still keep thinking that I see him in places now.
“Every little bump of noise outside and I’m thinking, ‘is it going to be him?’. I’m back on that alert mode.
“I got a follow request from an Instagram account that is called ‘I am following you’. I got a text from an unknown number which said nothing – it was just blank.
“There’s nothing threatening there but the presence of that text is still frightening.
“It’s knowing that he’s a couple of hours away or a bus or train journey away – that is terrifying. I’m getting claustrophobic and I want to lock myself up in the house and not see anyone. Or run away and not come back.
“Even if he has ‘gotten better’ or been rehabilitated, it’s always going to be in the back of my mind.
“I am definitely in a fearful state.” The full episode of “Stalked” can be viewed online on Virgin Media Player. If you, or anyone else you know, are currently or have been affected by stalking, for advice and help log onto: www.womensaid.ie.